


Lost History

by Oakwyrm



Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: (timsasha to be specific), Aromantic Sasha James, Asexual Jonathan "Jon" Sims | The Archivist, Friendship, Gen, No beta we die like archival assistants, Not-Sasha fucked up peoples memories of Real Sasha, Queerplatonic Relationships, and I don't think we do enough with that personally, don't ask Jon for relationship advice he's terrible at it
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-22
Updated: 2020-09-22
Packaged: 2021-03-07 20:21:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,895
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26603632
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Oakwyrm/pseuds/Oakwyrm
Summary: Sasha James and Jonathan Sims were friends, once.
Relationships: Sasha James & Jonathan "Jon" Sims | The Archivist, Sasha James & Jonathan "Jon" Sims | The Archivist & Tim Stoker, Sasha James/Tim Stoker
Comments: 23
Kudos: 83





	Lost History

**Author's Note:**

> Hi, I had some emotions so I'm here to deliver them to y'all :)

The first person Jon met on his first day working at the Magnus Institute was Sasha James. She still worked in Research at the time, it would be some years yet before she moved to Artefact Storage. She showed him to his desk and walked him through the basics, and her eyes fixed on the black ring on his right middle finger with a quiet spark of understanding.

The next day she came in with a white ring on her left middle finger, and Jon felt a giddy joy -which he would rather die than admit to- rise in his chest. They ate lunch together that day, and she didn’t seem put-off by his tendency to ramble, and he appreciated her dry humour. They didn’t talk about it, but there was a kind of solidarity there which Jon treasured beyond anything.

It didn't take long for the popular gossip to become that they were seeing each other. Or just having sex, according to some who thought Jon was ‘too much of a self-important prick to love anyone but himself’.

Which stung, especially so soon after Georgie, but Jon could ignore the occasional bit of overheard office gossip if it meant he got to keep Sasha as his friend. She was worth a thousand barbed comments and unkind assumptions.

Some weren’t even wrong.

Their relationship may have been strictly platonic, but Jon wasn’t going to pretend he didn’t agree with those who thought Sasha deserved better than him. He voiced this to her once, and only once.

The lecture he received in return shot that train of thought dead in its tracks and buried it beneath six feet of solid concrete. It didn’t vanish entirely, but Sasha’s words shadowed it with righteous anger. The memory of her indignation became a valuable tool in his admittedly limited arsenal against it and similar thoughts that sought to chip him down into nothing.

When Timothy Stoker joined them in Research it was all Jon could do not to cry. Tim and Sasha got on so well, so _immediately_. Every single one of Jon’s faults seemed so much clearer when contrasted against Tim. His emotional ineptitude, his rudeness and insensitivity. His tendency to either dominate conversations or let them die entirely. They all shone painfully clear under the bright spotlight of Tim’s presence.

But, unfortunately, Tim was a singularly hard person to hate. And fortunately for Jon’s relationship with Sasha but unfortunately for his private wish to hate Tim, he also never gave any indication he wished to separate them. Whenever he invited Sasha out for drinks or to karaoke or whatever else he could think of, he threw an offer in Jon’s direction. Sometimes Jon even accepted. Before long cordial politeness developed into real affection and Jon found himself, for the first time since his uni days, with two people he could honestly call his friends.

Still, Jon would always take just a little bit of secret pleasure in the fact that, when Sasha ran up against a problem of the romantic variety, it was to him she ran to vent.

Which was how he ended up sitting in her flat as she paced the length of it, biting her nails into near-nothingness as she agonised over one, in Jon’s humble opinion, _spectacularly_ poor decision. He told her as much and received a glare in return which told him more clearly than if she’d spoken that she agreed with him.

“Jon, what do I _do_?” she asked with a hint of desperation in her voice.

“Be honest with him?” he suggested, chin propped on his hand as he watched her pace. She snorted.

“That’s rich coming from you,” she said. Jon sent her a flat look.

“I’m not the one who got drunk and slept with _Timothy Stoker_ ,” he said. She groaned and sank down on the couch next to him.

“ _Jon_.”

“Right. Not helping.” He frowned down at the floor. “Does he know…?” he trailed off, gesturing vaguely as Sasha’s white ring.

“I don’t think so?” She twisted the white band around her finger in quiet thought. “If he does he’s never said.”

Jon hummed thoughtfully. “I still think you should be honest with him.”

Sasha sighed. “I would be if I actually knew what I wanted from him.”

“What?” Jon sat up a little straighter.

“I’m not in love with him,” she said, immediately, almost defensively.

“Not what I was going to suggest, but thank you for the confirmation,” he said dryly. Sasha buried her face in her hands.

“Sorry, force of habit.”

“I know.” He sighed. He may not have been in the exact same boat as her, but he recognised that defensiveness well enough to bear her no ill-will for it.

“I’m not in love with him,” she repeated. “But I do love him.” She rubbed the bridge of her nose, her expression pinched and exhausted.

“Hm.” Jon stared at her in quiet thought. “I don’t see the problem.”

“Jon!” She almost laughed, her tone thick with exasperated amusement. “Honestly, for someone who claims to be all in for the romantic bits you’re _completely_ oblivious, has anyone ever told you that?”

“I… may have heard that once or twice,” he admitted, reluctantly. She snorted, but the brief spark of humour faded quickly.

“Tim’s allo in every sense of the word,” she said, her voice subdued and sad. “I don’t… I don’t know if it could work. I think I’d like it if we could just… continue as we were. At least for now.”

“So just tell him that,” Jon said, some frustration seeping into his voice. “Unless you want to keep sleeping with him?”

“I don’t _know_ ,” Sasha said miserably.

“I don’t know how you expect me to help you if you don’t actually know where you want to end up,” Jon said. Sasha swatted his arm gently but didn’t offer a retort.

It took Tim and Sasha three months of horrid awkwardness before they could be anything approaching normal around each other again. Jon almost broke down and yelled ‘finally’ the day that Tim sat down to lunch with them again, not a trace of lingering uncertainty to be seen.

He didn’t, of course, but it was a near thing.

He did notice the increase in flirting between them after that, but when he asked, Sasha told him it was just banter. He took her word for it and trusted her to be able to sort out her own entanglements.

* * *

When Elias offered him the position as Head Archivist, he accepted, despite the knot of guilt in his stomach.

_It should be Sasha._

She had worked at the Institute longer, her experience was more varied, she was one of the few people Jon knew who’d ever even spoken to the last Head Archivist. He _knew_ it should be her, deep down, but-

But he never claimed to be perfect, and Elias was a hard man to argue with, especially when a sizeable part of Jon didn’t want to. When Elias looked at him and told him he saw _potential_. So, against his conscience and his better judgement and despite his complete lack of qualifications, he took the position and asked for Tim and Sasha to follow him down into the Archives. Tim was angry with him at first, of course. Jon didn’t need to hear the conversations between Tim and Sasha to clue in on that, but whatever Sasha said in his defence it must have worked because Tim’s anger cleared within their first week in the Archives. Or, rather, it morphed into muttered comments and cursing the name of Elias Bouchard and academic sexism instead of anger at Jon for accepting a position that should have been Sasha’s but would never have been offered to her.

With the move to the basement came the addition of Martin Blackwood, of course, but that relationship took a sharp downturn the very first time they met and continued rolling steadily downhill. Which was, admittedly, entirely Jon’s fault. He knew Tim and Sasha judged him for it, that they both thought Martin was quite lovely, but he didn’t particularly care. He refused to give Martin the time of day until he could actually turn in something competent. Not even for the basic niceties required for a cordial working relationship.

Then came the worms, and Martin gave his Statement, and Jon offered him a place to sleep in the Archives. He could feel his heartbeat in his ears as he walked away from that conversation, Martin’s Statement still racing around his mind. The thought of being trapped, alone in with nothing but Jane Prentiss’ slow, relentless knocking for two weeks-

Hearing Martin’s story was enough to make anyone uncomfortable, that was all. No one deserved that, and it was at least partially Jon’s fault that it happened. His own determined veil of scepticism which had driven Martin out into the field to look for more concrete evidence.

Nothing more. Nothing less. Just the least he could do.

He was almost out of the Archives when someone grabbed him by the arm and pulled him in behind a shelf of disorganised statements.

“What- Sasha?” he shook himself loose and glared at her.

“Sorry,” she offered, a little breathless. “All this. It’s got me thinking. I’m going to tell him.”

“What?” Jon blinked at her, completely lost.

“Tim. I’m going to tell him I’m aromantic and- and we’ll see if we can make something work between us that’ll make both of us happy.”

Jon couldn’t help it. He smiled. “Sasha, that’s fantastic,” he said, and he meant it.

“I know.” She grinned brightly at him. “I’ll keep you updated,” she said and pressed a quick kiss to his cheek before she vanished out the door. He shook his head fondly and followed in her footsteps at a considerably slower pace.

Sasha kept her promise.

In the following months, Jon got positively bombarded with candid shots of Tim hanging about Sasha’s flat at all hours of the day and night. He learned more about both of them in those four months than he ever needed to know, but it had been too long since he’d seen either of them so truly happy. He could not grudge them this, would never complain even when he was woken from a rare night of actual sleep by Sasha sending him a photo of Tim, too caught up in a game Jon didn’t recognise to notice her cat staring hungrily at his tuna sandwich and a second, much blurrier one, of the aftermath.

He complained a _little_ about the video of Tim whistling to himself while frying up breakfast in nothing but his pants and a very thin night-shirt, though. But he supposed seeing a little more of Tim Stoker than he’d ever wanted to was a small price to pay, for the unashamed joy in Sasha’s laugh.

Jane Prentiss attacked the Institute on the 29th of July.

The first person Jon met on his first day working at the Magnus Institute was Sasha James. She still worked in Research at the time, it would be some years yet before she moved to Artefact Storage. She showed him to his desk and walked him through the basics, and her eyes slid over the black ring on his right middle finger without a hint of recognition.

**Author's Note:**

> The concept of Aro/Ace solidarity between Sasha and Jon hit me hard and I had to write something and then it got sad.


End file.
